Pre-Workouts Causing Athletes to Test Positive

Most who have trained at some point have probably taken these popular drinks (myself included) as a way to increase their focus or to drive better performance during training. In reality, these supplements don’t lend themselves to real results. They are filled with unknown amounts of “proprietary blends” and the only people who defend them are the typical meatheads in the commercial gym. Who wouldathunk it? When an athlete asks what I think about pre-workout “X” or protein “X,” my first question is “what is your typical breakfast, lunch, and dinner?” 99% of the time the answer is cereal (breakfast), fries and pizza (lunch), and whatever mom makes for dinner, most likely, the only meal with quality nutrients. No pre-workout or protein powder is going to drive better results when their nutrition is garbage. Yes, NONE of them. What’s an even more reasonable reason to stop taking them…? The fact that young athlete’s have tested positive because of banned substances that often times is not on the “proprietary blend” list. Brands sometimes do not even list all the ingredients they put in their products. An excerpt from this article…

Methylhexaneamine, the banned substance O’Connor tested positive for soon thereafter, did not appear on the Jack3d ingredient list. That’s because methylhexaneamine can also be identified as any one of its eight derivatives — creating a confusing situation for players and medical professionals alike. The Jack3d label listed the substance as dimethylamylamine, a word that does not appear on the league’s banned substance list.

University studied my A**

An honest coaching approach is to educate them on these products and to hammer home the idea of proper nutrition, sleep, and recovery. These are basic, but basic works and works extremely well. It may not prevent them from consuming the product but we are at least doing our part to educate. Here is an even better article on NO Explode from my colleague Kevin Neeld.